


Unnecessary Taekwondo Not!fic

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship
Genre: Gen, Martial Arts, Not!Fic, and does xma, gabe teaches taekwondo, one paragraph of admiration for William Beckett and his sexy sexy fingers, taekwondo, the taekwondo fic nobody except me wanted, vague mentions of Brendon Urie, victoria is a total bad ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6391783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is the story that nobody else wanted but me.  It was supposed to be a story about William Beckett starting martial arts and learning to love himself and blah blah blah, but I couldn't make it work and this is much better anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unnecessary Taekwondo Not!fic

**The fic** would focus on Gabe, because I have some kind of thing for him right now (if you could see my works in progress folder you’d understand).  Anyways, it starts with Gabe, who works at a taekwondo instructor at Armstrong’s Black Belt Academy.  If that is Armstrong as in Billy Joe or Armstrong as in Neil, well, I’ll never tell.  

No, yeah, it’s Billy Joe Armstrong.  Whatever.

 

Shush.

 

We all know Gabe.  He’s a total dude, but also fucking gorgeous, and he comes across as not only obnoxious (shall we say flamboyant) but also headstrong.  He’s the kind of guy who would fight for something (heh. fight. punny). 

 

Anyways, taekwondo (gonna summarize that as  **TKD** because it’s stupid to spell over and over again) instructors aren’t anything special.  Trust me, I am one.  Gabe could totally fit the bill (or maybe, the Bilvy.  Hahaha I’m sorry I’m writing his on an airplane and four hours of sleep).  So Armstrong owns the place and is head instructor.  It’s a pretty small school (50 or so students) and is run mostly by two young instructors- Gabe and Victoria.  Victoria is the hardass here, because somebody has to be.  She’s a vision in a t-shirt and baggy dobak pants.  Her fourth degree black belt is always tied perfectly, matching her carefully tied back hair, pristine eyeliner, and shining nails.  It’s an Agent Carter type thing here.  Who’s to say a girl can’t be a supermodel AND kick ass?  Basically, when she’s in teacher mode she has the looks of a pin-up girl, a pin-up girl who could kick your fucking ass, but a pin-up girl nonetheless.  Think roller derby.

 

Gabe sees her without makeup though.  At sleepovers, because fuck whoever said that 18/19/20 was too old for slumber parties or that boys and girls can’t be just friends (they did date once in high school, but that was messy and freshman year and they joked around about it now).  They’ve kind of been best friends forever.  Since they were both tiny white belts who didn’t plan on devoting their lives to the stupid academy.

 

Anyways, Gabe sees her without makeup all the time.  When they spar before or after classes, and they’re both drenched in sweat; swimming at hotels on overnight trips to tournaments; at sleepovers; when Vicky comes into work early and hungover.  But she keeps a makeup bag in her rucksack, and you best believe she can do her full face in the five minutes it takes her to get ready.

 

They’ve talked about it before, and Vicky says it’s a self-image thing.  Maybe she wasn’t so confident when she first started teaching.  Maybe she’d been the plucky younger sister of three older girls.  Maybe she just found that it was easier to be in front of people when she  _ knew _ she looked stunning.  Maybe it was also a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to a sport that celebrated masculinity as much as martial arts did.

 

[Can you tell I have a bit of a crush on Victoria Asher?  Oh well.  Moving on].

 

They worked alongside each other every day, had since they were fourteen and their instructor (not the  _ head _ instructor (Armstrong, school owner), but the floor instructor who had brought them up) got too old or moved on to bigger or better things. That guy left, and Gabe didn’t skip a beat in picking up classes, pushing the school forward whether it liked it or not.  He may have been young, but he was trained for this.  He knew what he was doing, or maybe not, but he could make it up as he went along.  He had fourteen years of age, six years in the sport, and a second degree black belt.  He didn’t care if, according to Head Quarters and the greater part of the Association he was just a baby.  Mr. Armstrong knew he could do it and let him, helped out a lot in the beginning, but it wasn’t a few months before Gabe could lead seven classes, six + hours a day, all by himself without flinching.

 

Victoria hadn’t been as eager, and she hadn’t been easily convinced either, which was ironic considering that present day she could run fucking circles around Gabe. 

THey’d both been big into competitions becak in the day.  Victoria had a World Champ title in forms from when she was eleven.  Gabe held State Champ in sparring five years and counting, but that didn’t even matter when Victoria had those fancy red letters on her back.  She was, in Gabe’s opinion, a goddess.  But don’t get the wrong idea.  He wasn’t in love with her.  Been there, done that.  Gabe was more into girls who looked like boys, and boys who looked like girls.  If androgyny was a kink, then Gabe had it.  He’d given up trying to make sense of it.  He was kind of a ‘go with the flow’ guy.

 

Unless the flow was fucking stupid, which was how he’d gotten himself into his current mess of trouble.

 

Gabe was used to trouble, though.  He was always in trouble.  The irony wasn’t lost on him.  He made his living telling kids to be good and respectful and have self-control when half the time he was a total punk.  He was such a hypocrite, but growing up in martial arts meant learning that 90% of the respect mumbo jumbo was total bullshit.

 

Victoria liked it though.  She liked being called “ma’am” and “Ms. Asher” and commanding a class, having them snap to attention at her word.  She was a control freak.  It worked for her.  It didn’t work for Gabe.

 

Gabe was the fun instructor, the guy who made workouts into games and told funny stories while they stretched and kissed booboos when someone got a little too rough.  He had a serious instructor voice that he could pull out when absolutely necessary.  It didn’t happen all too often, but it was pretty scary.  He was a little proud of it.  He usually only had to use it on his high rank color belt class, cause they were almost all 12-14 and let me tell you, kids that age are fucking shitheads.  Gabe loved them, but God, they were shitheads.

 

But yeah, Victoria was the scary one, Gabe was the goofy one.  Vicky could be goofy too though.  

 

They were both there early before classes.  Gabe had gotten there at one because he had a tournament in three weeks and needed to invent a new XMA form (“XMA” read: extreme martial arts, which is basically when you pick a fucking AWESOME song and make up a fucking AWESOMER form to go with it.  Back flips, Jackie Chan kicks, spins, dramatic screaming.  It’s thrilling). 

 

Gabe had been doing double nunchucks for the longest time, and they were nifty, but he’d had the same form for a year now.  Nobody was impressed anymore, and he could do it in his sleep, which was lame.  If it wasn’t a challenge, it wasn’t worth it.

 

I like to think his old form was something really fucking intense, like that Disturbed song “Get Down With The Sickness” or that other song that goes “LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR.”  He could do intense when he wanted to be, but he usually only wanted to be during XMA.

 

Maybe not this time around though…

 

After dropping a nunchuck for the fourth time, Gabe screamed and hurled the other across the room, letting it travel the short distance across their tiny school and clatter against the opposite wall.

 

“Someone’s pleasant today,” Vicky said.  She was perched on the counter, hands holding steadily onto a nail polish brush as she fixed the striking red on her fingernails.  Red like blood, Gabe liked to tell the kids, making claws with his hands and baring his teeth, stalking around while they all giggled and Victoria kicked him in the ass.

 

“Everything I do sucks!” He yelled, and round kicked a standing bag, knocking it over in a nice, smooth fall.  The thing was, he wanted this to be good, and if there was anyone he actually cared about impressing, it was Victoria.  He kind of hated how she just sat there all pretty and perfect and popping gum and watched him practice.

 

But as they liked to say, practice didn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice made perfect.

 

“Well, you’re being a little bitch.  Do you need a timeout?” She said.  Gabe flipped her off.  She rolled her eyes and popped her gum.

 

They end up goofing around.  They don’t wrestle, because Victoria’s nails are still wet, but somehow they get on youtube and Vicky says,

 

“Omg, I just found this stupid song from eighth grade.  You’ve got to hear it.”

 

It was ‘Pretty Girl Rock’ ( [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjrQJhBPZrA ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjrQJhBPZrA) )which Gabe vaguely recalled from middle school slumber party flashbacks.  He sang along dramatically, and when Victoria said, “You should use this for your new form,” it sparked an idea.  It started a bit fast, good pace for XMA, but the beat slowed as it went on.  He’d been wanting to play around with his sword lately and maybe actually do something legit with it.

 

He also kind of wanted to piss people off.

 

There was some bullshit flying around with this kid Tyler, who was a third degree boy in the age bracket below Gabe’s (15-18 instead of 19-29, the lucky bastard. Gabe’s ring was fucking vicious).

 

Tyler was in a bit of trouble over a toenail debacle, because apparently it was fine for the girls to pretty themselves up for tournaments, but if a boy did it, it was “out of uniform,” which was bullshit.  The only difference between the male and female uniform code was that girls had to wear undershirts.  That was literally it.  This whole thing was such crap.

 

The thing is, all the high ranks in taekwondo are cranky old men, and cranky old men don’t look too kindly on boys in nail polish. 

 

Fucking bullshit.

 

Gabe was impartial to nail polish personally, but the whole thing pissed him off anyways.  This would be even better.  Hilarious.  Absolutely golden.  He loved the idea, and they were lucky enough that Mr. Armstrong didn’t care enough to check their XMA forms before competitions. He trusted them.  Gabe didn’t really think he deserved to be trusted most of the time.

 

He pieced it together that afternoon with Victoria’s mocking insight until their little helper showed up (early, as always, the little shit.  Brendon practically lived at the academy, oh so eager to help out and be everybody’s best friend, which was great.  Gabe had been just like him.  And it was awesome save for the fact that Brendon was the most annoying twelve year old EVER).

 

Gabe had to put his new project on the backburner while the school filled up with kids, and didn’t break it out again until the walk home, where he kept his youtube app open on his phone and wasted all of his data humming along to the song and planning. 

 

,,,

 

His form was awesome.  Moment of truth was at a class B tournament at a high school gym a state over.  It was big enough to matter but not big enough for him to be seriously mocking the art.  Big enough to get him in trouble, but it wasn’t 200 pushups, ass beating, go hang your belt up on the wall, young man, kind of trouble.  Just yelling trouble.  Give people something to complain about.  Give Mr. Armstrong a reason to pull out his hair.

 

His ring was uneventful and the same crowd as always.  He lost a tie for third in forms, and got second in sparring, which was good but not fantastic, and nothing to brag about.  In combat weapons (that is, beating each other silly with blue foam bats), he earned first.  He’d been perfecting his screeching, flailing monkey attack of distraction.  It always worked on his students, and almost always worked on Victoria, until she tackled his ass to the mat and got him into a joint wrenching lock, smushing his face into the floor until he wasn’t even laughing anymore and had to beg her to let him up. The kids thought that was hilarious, and their adult students (that is, actual adults, like forty years old with three kids and a sizable ROTH IRA account) shook their heads at the shenanigans and told Gabe to man up. Ha. Funny.

 

Vicky was fucking vicious. 

 

Not the point.  The point was that Gabe was about to humiliate himself and he couldn’t wait.  He lined up formally, displayed his weapon (broad sword. It was so beautiful) and introduced himself in time with Keri at the very beginning of the song Pretty Girl Rock.

 

I imagine Victoria helped him a lot with this form, and her laughing as she scolded, “There’s no hip swaying in taekwondo, Saporta!”

 

There was when Gabe did it though.  The first part of his form was entirely twirls and stabs.  On the line, “I’ll be happy to repeat it,” he did a sassy little hip pop and OH just imagine everyone’s faces.  They didn’t know how to react.  He was so out of line, they didn’t know whether they were allowed to laugh or not.  People played jokes sometimes, but never, NEVER, did they act this… this flaming.  Was it even okay? 

 

When the song slows down into the chorus, he strikes a kick straight up, braces his foot against the flat of his blade and leaves it there long enough to be impressive before dropping into a full side split.

 

It only got worse as it went on.  Not only was there hip swaying; at one point he fucking z-snaps, and don’t get me wrong.  It was still a taekwondo form, it was maybe just a little softer than usual, less snaps and more sways.  But the kicks, occasional spins, and that damn side split drop were still fucking awesome.

 

At the end of it he’s beaming as he stands center and waits for scoring.  There’s scattered applause, not as polite as usual.  Most of it comes from Bilvy, who’s smiling wide and has always been a bit more feminine than necessarily allowed.  His hair was always touching his collar and his hands, though calloused enough to break boards, were slender and delicate.  He was totally Gabe’s type, and the crush Gabe had on him was both embarrassing and incredibly unacceptable, considering William was only 16 and also his  _ student _ . 

 

Whatever, he was clapping.  Victoria was at his side, grinning in a way that was probably supposed to be patronizing but Gabe only ever saw as proud.  Her arms were crossed, pale and powerful under baggy white canvas; she shook her head when they made eye contact. 

 

He got scored straight threes and wasn’t too upset about it.  Mr. Armstrong was pretty upset, but mostly amused, and the chewing out he gave Gabe back in his office was nothing compared to the talking to his center judge gave him immediately after after their ring was dismissed. 

 

I imagine the other boys in Gabe’s ring were simply entertained by the whole thing.  Maybe Nate, who was the only fifth degree in the ring and clapped him on the back.  Said, “Nice splits, man,” and then, “Gross. You’re sweaty.”  Maybe the others smiled and gave him a thumbs up. 

 

One of the kid’s parents definitely caught the whole thing on video and tagged him in it on facebook, because there are always awesome tournament moms that kind of adopt you as their own when you’re stuck with each other long enough. 

  
So yeah, that’s the story of how Gabe made a kick ass taekwondo sword form to the song “Pretty Girl Rock” and made a fool out of himself.  More to come, mother fuckers.


End file.
